The View from Castle Rock

closed his eyes, but he had not slept.
    Either the baby had been really stolen this time, or it had been dragged off and mauled and probably half eaten by some animal. There was no reason that he himself should be involved, or in any way held to blame. Perhaps Becky Johnson might be blamed in some way, if he swore he’d seen her in the woods. She would swear she hadn’t been there but he would swear she was.
    Because they’d go back, surely. They’d have to bury the baby if they ever found anything left of her, or even if they didn’t, they would have to have a funeral service, wouldn’t they? So what he had wanted to happen would be accomplished. His mother would be in a bad way, though.
    Her hair might turn white overnight.
    If this was his father’s present way of ordering or arranging things, it was a great deal more drastic than anything he would have thought of in the days when he was alive.
    And operating in this pitiless or haphazard fashion, would his father even care that Jamie got the blame?
    Also, his mother might see that he had something to do with it, something that he wasn’t telling. She could do that sometimes, though she had easily swallowed the lie about Becky Johnson. If she knew, or even suspected anything like the truth, she would hate him forever.
    He could pray, if a liar’s prayers had any value. He could pray that the baby was taken by an Indian, though not Becky Johnson, and that she would grow up in an Indian camp, and one day come to the door trying to sell some Indian trinkets and would be very beautiful and be recognized at once by his mother who would cry out with joy and look the way she used to look before his father died.
    Stop that. How could he think of anything so stupid?

    Andrew walked into the barn’s shadow and stood there urinating. While he did so he heard a strange thin sound of distress. He thought it was some night animal, maybe a mouse in a trap. When he had buttoned himself up he heard it again, and now it was clear enough that he could follow it. Around the barn, across the barnyard, to an outbuilding which had a regular door, not a door for livestock. The sound was louder now and Andrew, the father of several children, recognized it for what it was.
    He knocked on the door, twice, and when there was no answer he tried the latch. There was no bolt on, the door swung inwards. The moon shone in through a window and showed a baby. Sure enough, a baby. Lying there on a narrow cot made up with a rough blanket and a flat pillow that must be someone’s bed. Hooks on the wall held a few articles of clothing and a lantern. This must be where the stable boy slept. But he wasn’t home, he was still out-probably at the other, shabbier hotel, which sold beer and whisky. Or mooning around with some girl.
    In his place, on his bed, was this hungry baby.
    Andrew picked it up, not noticing the bit of paper which fell away from its clothing. He had never paid a lot of attention to what Mary’s baby looked like and he did not do so now. There was not much chance of there being two babies missing in the same night. He didn’t fuss over it, but carried it confidently back to the hotel. It had stopped crying anyway, when it was picked up.
    Nobody stirred on the porch when he mounted the steps, and he proceeded up the stairs to Mary’s room. She opened the door before he could knock, as if she had heard the child’s snuffling breathing, and he spoke at once, quietly, to stop her crying out.
    “Is this the one you’re missing?”

    The stable boy found the paper on the floor when he got back. He could read it, too.
    A PRESENT from one of your SWEETHEARTS.
    But no present, not even a joke of a present, that he could see, anywhere around.

    Jamie had heard his uncle come up on the porch, then enter the inn. Now he heard him come out, he heard his deliberate and threatening footsteps coming this way, instead of the other way. His heart thumped with the steps. Then he knew that his uncle was standing there looking down on him. He wagged his head about and opened his eyes reluctantly, as if waking up.
    “I just took your sister upstairs to your mother,” his uncle said matter-of-factly. “I thought I’d put your mind to rest.” And he turned around to go to his own sleeping spot.

    So there was no need to turn back, and they continued their journey on in the morning. Andrew thought it just as well not to interfere with the story of the Indian woman, and gave it as his